Travelers. Artists. Activists. Women.

Tag: world war I

Today is the anniversary of the armistice that brought WWI to an end in 1918. In honor of it, let’s meet eight women who worked as war correspondents in Europe between 1914 and 1918.

Despite several fantastic resources now available about female WWI reporters, a variation of this sentiment still occasionally pops up on the Interwebs: “During the First World War women war correspondents were simply nonexistent; the U.S. military accredited only one, then sent her off to Siberia, far from the main fighting fronts.” (That little gem appeared in National Geographic.)

But the accuracy of that statement is simply nonexistent. Women were most definitely reporting from the front lines, permission slips be damned. So let’s begin.Read More »

Harriet Chalmers Adams is almost always included in round-ups of American female adventurers, and rightfully so. She was an obsessive traveler, and from what I’ve read so far, Jessie Ackermann appears to be the only American woman to have technically covered more ground in the early 20th century. Kathryn Davis, who is probably the foremost scholar on Adams, put together a handy table of her travels:

From The California Geographer, 49, 2009

In the early 1900s, Adams cultivated a public image as a female adventurer in order to garner interest in the public talks she gave to raise money for her trips. And she certainly wasn’t shy about posing for camera — her husband took several photos of her during their first major journey, to South America in 1904, which were published by the New York Times and elsewhere upon their return and launched her into the public eye. The Library of Congress also has images of her doing grip and grins with figures like Amelia Earhart and male reporters and politicians of her day.

But an unfortunate historical side effect of this is that we usually only see only pictures of Adams, but not pictures by her. And that means we’re missing half the story, because over the years, Adams evolved into an accomplished photographer.Read More »

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The Wo-manifesto

What do these diverse historical women have in common? They all documented their global travels with words, photographs, films, paintings, sculptures, and more.
Their canon offers a historical snapshot of their time, as well as insights for contemporary women and travelers. This site is not a melancholic plea for their remembrance. Here, their work is as relevant as it’s always been.